Torreciudad's Romanesque Virgin to receive Marian images at old hermitage, then return by car

The Torreciudad shrine, in the province of Huesca in northeastern Spain, hosts the 47th Pilgrimage Festival of the Virgins of Ribagorza on Saturday, September 5. The traveling Marian gathering brings together images from the towns of Ribagorza and Sobrarbe on the first Saturday of September each year. This year the Romanesque carving of Our Lady of the Angels will be taken from its niche in the present church and moved to the old hermitage, where it will receive the participating images.

The original image will not take part in the procession. After the welcome it will return to the new church by vehicle, with protective measures in place. Torreciudad will be represented in the procession by the pilgrim image, the copy the shrine has used for years at pilgrimage festivals and at events away from its usual site. That copy has the mountings and fittings needed to move it safely.

The restored carving is normally kept in a niche behind anti-theft and anti-vandalism glass, which limits any movement of the piece. The move was announced in a press release the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón sent to local media, which said the original image would make the pilgrimage. According to sources familiar with the process, neither the shrine nor the pontifical commissioner for the complex, Msgr. Alejandro Arellano, had been informed beforehand. The arrangement now planned came out of a later agreement.

The day begins at 10 a.m., when the groups arrive and the images are prepared beside the Torreciudad tourist office. At 11 a.m. the Marian images will be carried in procession across the shrine esplanade, with the recitation of the rosary. At noon, after a welcome from the mayor of Secastilla, the municipality to which Torreciudad belongs, Bishop Ángel Javier Pérez Pueyo of Barbastro-Monzón will celebrate Mass at the high altar of the church. At 1 p.m. there will be a screening of the video mapping show "El retablo te cuenta," and the final blessing follows at 1:15 p.m. Areas will be set aside for pilgrims who bring their own food.

The Pilgrimage Festival of the Virgins of Ribagorza has been held for decades in Alto Aragón and draws the faithful and delegations from many towns in the provinces of Huesca and Lleida. Previous editions have brought together close to 1,000 pilgrims and about 30 images. Torreciudad has hosted the gathering before, in 2011.

The move comes with a decision on the future of the complex still pending. In October 2024 Pope Francis appointed the dean of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, Msgr. Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, as plenipotentiary pontifical commissioner for Torreciudad, tasked with addressing the shrine's legal, canonical and pastoral situation on behalf of the Holy See. The diocese, which has proposed that Torreciudad become an international shrine under Rome, says the original carving should return permanently to the old hermitage and that a copy be placed in the church built at the initiative of St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei. The diocesan statement does not say that the image will remain in the hermitage after the pilgrimage festival.